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"Just
finished the Escort to the Beloved chapter. I have
cried for the first time since December 8, 2000—the
night of the car accident that nearly took my life.
I didn't cry then. I think I became an observer of
my life. I can't begin to thank you for writing this
book.” |
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Trebbe Johnson's Newsletter
April 2007
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 Dear
Questers, Friends, and Seekers of the
Beloved,
Many thanks to all of you who responded
to my call for suggestions about how to
make my newsletter a bit jazzier, more
contemporary, and easier to read. Here
it is in its brand new format. In this
newsletter, which I will do my best to
send out monthly, you'll find news of
upcoming events, reflections, and
stories of transformation that occur
when we accept, in small, bold,
startling ways the invitations that the
world is always sending us. |
DARE
TO CHOOSE THE WATERFALL
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.jpg) When
the vision questers set out among the
dogwood-flowering, green-leafing,
stream-woven Tennessee hills to find the
spots where they would spend their
three-day solo, everyone was well aware
that the terrain was not equally
endowed. A steep woodland path opened
out suddenly into a shallow pool, at the
head of which spilled a broad,
crystalline waterfall. Who, if anyone,
would claim his or her solo spot nearby?
One by one they returned to base camp to
describe to my co-guide, Peter Scanlan,
and me, where their chosen places were.
One woman had accepted the invitation of
the waterfall-and was feeling a little
shaken by her boldness. "Part of me
feels like I don't deserve to be there,"
she said. "Maybe one of the other
questers deserves it more. But I also
feel like my life depends on my acting
as if I'm equal to that kind of beauty
and power."
It's sometimes said that love and fear
can't occupy our hearts at the same
time. I couldn't disagree more! Love and
fear often wrestle within us, especially
when we stand at the threshold of some
new frontier, inner or outer. When love
and fascination call us forth, fear-that
we will be ridiculed, slapped down,
abandoned-immediately rises up to hold
us back. It is only when we recognize
the power of these two forces, and the
frequency with which they battle in us,
that we can boldly and consciously enter
the new territories that beckon us.
A dear mentor of mine, Judith Mosson,
who recently died, used to ask me: "What
would you do if you weren't afraid?"
I've gotten into the habit of asking
myself this question even if I don't
recognize at the moment that fear might
be a factor. What comes to me then is
almost always both an answer that tells
me how to act, and the imperative that I
must
act.
On the
vision quests and workshops
I lead, it is those moments when people
say "yes" to allurement and "not now" to
fear that often transform their life,
not just in that pivotal moment, but
forever after. On a radio program I
recently appeared on, the host, Jesse
Dylan, was asking each guest at the end
of the interview: "What's the one piece
of advice you'd like to leave with
people?" My answer: Every day take one
action you're afraid to take and know
that you must take.
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DREAMING IN THE CANYON
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 Louden
Kiracofe has an approach to dreams
unlike any I've ever encountered. I've
been guiding vision quests in the Utah
Canyonlands with Louden for ten years,
and every time I watch him work with one
of our questers to explore a dream
they've had, I'm amazed.
Rather than tearing into a dream and
using the rational mind to look for
possibly useful symbols that will shine
light on "real life" situations, Louden
lets the dream open up its own secrets
as the people, animals, and objects in
it speak for themselves. Instead of
bringing the dream "up" to the light of
consciousness, this approach takes the
dreamer even further "down" into the
fertile unconscious. The journey into
the dream is followed by time in Nature,
so the process deepens even more. People
are truly transformed after exploring a
dream in this way,
and
they have a way to work gently and
insightfully with their dreams on their
own.
From June 5-10 Louden will be leading a
five-day workshop, "Working
with Dreams
and Walking in Dreamtime"
near Durango, CO. The workshop will be
held at his place, a beautiful and
extensive piece of land at an old
stagecoach stop on a perennial river
cradled between mesas (one of which is
the famous Anasazi site, Mesa Verde). I
can't recommend this workshop highly
enough. If you've ever had a dream that
intrigues you, if your dreams lately
have taken on a pattern you don't
understand and find intriguing if you'd
like find a way to work with your own
dreams more fruitfully, then don't miss
the chance to work with Louden. For
further information about the workshop,
contact Louden at
wolfmd2@mindspring.com or
970/259-9741.
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TINY
REUNIONS
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One advantage of sending out this
newsletter in its old form was that I
enjoyed a tiny reunion with each of you.
I would start typing your name, and the
email program would quickly respond with
a ribbon of type containing the rest of
the name and your email address. In that
two- or three-second engagement, I made
a connection with you. It was like
running into hundreds of wonderful
people and greeting them, and in the
process being presented with a snippet
of their story.
Oh! There's the woman I met at the
bookstore reading Tucson who talked
about how her dog is a guide to the
Beloved. There's the man with MS who sat
in his wheelchair near the road at the
top of a high, windy peak in Colorado
and exalted because he'd thought he
would never again get to the top of a
mountain. The woman who fell in love
with a cactus and through it saw her own
delicate beauty. The married woman who's
suffering from her love of another man.
The man who learned from the Sahara
Desert that his sacred work is to make
"unbeautiful" art. The man whose
daughter was killed in a car accident.
When I couldn't recognize a name, I
would look it up in my address book. Oh
yes, the woman who wrote me about my
book, the man from my Wilderness
Medicine course, the musician I met
after the service I gave at the Rothko
Chapel in Houston.
Please know that I do remember your
stories and, even more than the details,
the longing and passion, the search for
wholeness, the desire to transcend-all
those complex feelings that bubble
beneath the stories and give them
meaning. I love hearing from you,
hearing what's happened since we met
last (even if we barely know each
other), what hasn't happened and you
wish had. So do stay in touch.
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THE
WORLD IS A WAITING LOVER
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 Michou
Landon, reviewing my book for
Mount Shasta Magazine,
wrote, "Johnson's poetic writing plucks
the strings of the heart, not with
sentimental, cascading stokes on a harp,
but with the deep, resonant, penetrating
tones of a universal human Truth:
Longing for the Beloved."
Meet your own archetypal Beloved and
discover how to say YES more readily to
the world's invitations (even the hard
ones)! Upcoming workshops May 18-20 in
Nashville (contact Candy Burger,
burgermc@excite.com ), July 29-Aug.
3 at
Omega Institute,
and September 21-23 at
Diana's Grove,
Salem, MO. The book is available at
bookstores everywhere and at
Amazon.com.
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